Like music to my taste buds
20.05.12
Last year there was a study led by Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University, and published in the British Journal of Psychology, about the effect of background music on the taste of wine. It shows just how much our senses interrelate — like color and taste. Would a green steak taste as good as a red and brown one? Would broccoli taste different to us if it was black?
There's a great deal of chatter between our senses that we're not even aware of and some of that chatter is between our sense of taste and sound. Potato chips taste, and are perceived as fresher, when the crunch is louder and in North's study, he found that when people drink wine while listening to music, the taste of the wine mirrors the character of the music.
He tested the taste perceptions of 250 university students as they drank either Montes Alpha 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon (red wine) or Chardonnay (white wine). Some drank the wine while listening to Carmina Burana by Orff, a strikingly powerful piece, and some drank the wine while listening to Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker,' more refined and lovely. Then there were those who drank the wine to the tune of Just Can't Get Enough by Nouvelle Vague, and finally, some sipped wine while listening to Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook, a slow, background music song. Some drank with no music at all.
Source: Seacoastonline.com